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1. The Angry Pixies
   Story: Specially Written
2. Sally the Screamer
   Story: Specially Written

The Angry Pixies

A favourite place the children love to visit is the beautiful Pixie Wood because in Maytime it abounds with primroses, violets, and a carpet of bluebells.

One day Joan, Harry, Peter and Lucy visit the woods for a picnic made up of sandwiches, cakes, chocolate, and lemonade. Harry, who's a regular in the Enid Blyton tales, is really looking forward to his egg sandwiches and Joan suggests they share because she's got jam ones.

They settle themselves in a flowery dell to enjoy their meal but into this blissful picture there enters a sad note. When Harry sees a robin looking hopefully at them he picks up a stone and throws it at the little bird, sending it flying away with a cry of pain.

Joan remonstrates.

A rabbit peeps out from behind a tree but not for long, because Peter throws a stick and the creature runs back into its hole. The children finish up all their food and Harry suggests they prop up the empty bottles and throw stones at them. The targets are set up and before long broken pieces of glass fly out all over the primroses and green moss leaving a terrible mess, and then Peter begins throwing bits of the moss at the others.

Lucy remonstrates.

Peter stops and they begin a game of 'He,' in the process of which they trample over the flowers and added to that, a gusty wind arrives to blow their sandwich papers all over the place. The cardboard cups are trodden upon and then just before they leave, Peter decides they should dig up a few primrose roots to take home. That's what they do and eventually the children leave thinking what a lovely picnic it was.

Next day, Harry enters the woods again because he wants to visit his uncle who lives on the other side. On his way through, he hears an angry voice,

"I shall tell a policeman. It's a wicked shame!"

Harry looks around to see who it is that's speaking and he spots a small pixie standing nearby. He asks what the matter is and the pixie man tells him he had the most beautiful home in the woods with a robin and a rabbit for friends and moss for a carpet, and now SOMEBODY has spoilt it all. The pixie starts crying as he lists all the terrible things that have happened to his home — and do you know,

"One of the people who did this has broken my robin's leg!"

"Oh," says Harry.

It appears the pixie's rabbit friend is too frightened to come out now and there's glass all over the place — in fact the pixie cut his shoes on it and injured his foot when he got back late last night. He carries on about the terrible damage and Harry goes very red when he's told the pixie policeman who knows all kinds of magic, is going to be informed.

He quickly excuses himself and disappears to find the others. They discuss what's happened and a considerable amount of sorrow is expressed ... did Harry really break that poor robin's leg? When they think about what has happened, each child feel quite depressed and they end up returning to the woods. They want to find the pixie and apologise for what they've done ... but he's nowhere to be found.

This tale is a simple straightforward one with an ending that, hopefully, puts things right.

Sally The Screamer

This is a Blyton story dealing with one of her favourite subjects — children who're basically a pain in the neck. Sally, looking four or five years old and pictured with a very discontented looking face, is jumping around and shrieking like anything. Mother gives her what she wants when she screams ... so she screams. What Mother should have done of course is to tell her she can yell blue murder but must go upstairs to her room and shut the door so that no one can hear. That would have worked because it's no use screaming if the noise can't be heard, but Sally's mother seems oblivious to this fact.

One day after being told she can't go out, Sally starts screaming away in the nursery as is her wont and an old woman passing by pops her head in at the window. She warns the little girl she might scream the house down if she carries on like that but Sally simply yells twice as loud, hoping her mother will come in and send the old lady away. The woman advises her that a bit of the ceiling is already coming adrift and then, realising Sally's 'talent' could be of use, she reaches a long arm into the room and drags her right out of the window. Sally's then pulled along the street at a great pace, into the woods, and down a path accompanied all the while of course by hellish screams that are so intense they cause the little girl's discontented face to colour purple. Incredibly, the woman encourages her to keep on yelling.

At last they approach a tumbledown cottage and the old woman says that it's due to come down because the builders are going to make her a nice new one, but they've been too busy to demolish the old one. That's where Sally comes in. She's pushed into the cottage and the old woman calls though the window telling her to scream and SCREAM.

Well, you should have heard the cacophony of sound created that day. Perhaps you shouldn't have because it might have been completely deafening, but it's recorded that all the birds round and about jumped in fright and flew off. To Sally's horror, as she's hollers and howls, one of the walls tumbles down spreading dust all over the place. This shocks her and she calls,

"Let me out, let me out! I shall be hurt!"

She's now beating on the door still screaming vehemently and next moment the chimneypots fall off with a clatter and bricks fly everywhere when yet another wall tumbles down.

"I'm frightened! Let me out," Sally howls.

"No, keep on screaming because there's still a lot of the house to fall down yet," is the unwelcome reply.

Sally opens her mouth again to scream with rage and then ...

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#1:

As the woods are a favourite venue, I wonder how the children behaved on previous excursions?

Oddly, one of the girls is missing from all three illustrations that depict the happy group.

Although we only hear one pixie's complaint, we can assume that many other pixies were also angry about the state of affairs.

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The Pennant booklets as noted on the inside cover contain 'indirect instruction' concerning morals and ethics, presented in an entertaining manner. The first story in this sample presumably deals with the follies of desecration, but the second might not be quite so easy to define. Is it immoral to scream? Possibly the idea imparted is that you shouldn't over-indulge children although, in this case, it's Mother rather than the child who should benefit from the indirect instruction. These illustrations are hidden by default to ensure faster browsing. Loading the illustrations is recommended for high-speed internet users only.